


Cruelty and Kindness (side by side)

by MistressAkira



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, Drabble, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, dual perspective, just a lot of angst, there's no way around it, two sad angry boys need to share their feelings with each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 09:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13995618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressAkira/pseuds/MistressAkira
Summary: The world was a cruel, dark place, the shadows cast by history long and grim. A single choice, a single moment, a single person, and they could drown the future generations in darkness.What would history have to say, if a decision hadn’t been made and their fathers had stayed on the same side? Would they have been able to grow close like Seliph and Leif had? Would they have been able to swear to avenge their fathers together rather than swear vengeance for their fathers on each other?





	Cruelty and Kindness (side by side)

**Author's Note:**

> Something small, written for this little corner of the fandom I am entirely way too fond of.
> 
> I actually first posted this story last year, but I wasn't all that happy with it so I took it down and revised it. So there ya go.
> 
> (I actually have a longer Seliph/Ares fic still in the works that I hope will see the light of day eventually ahhhhhh....)

The world was a cruel place.

It took things that belonged to others, and history -that heartless narrator- had a nasty habit of repeating itself. Time was the culmination of days, and weeks, and months of suffering, and eventually one had to grow up under that heavy cross; because when children couldn’t be children anymore, for one reason or another, time seemed to come in much shorter supply.

They all knew this. The Holy War had spared no soul, no child, and time grew ever shorter as the world grew ever crueler.

Ares had learned to be cruel to survive. Yet he didn't always put that into practice, and he knew better, but he thought he could eek by on possessing good luck and a streak of nobility.

Seliph was different.

He had all the reason in the world to think of it as a cruel place, but he didn’t. He saw it as a memorial, to all before them; saw all the ghosts left in the wake of others’ cruelty, and still somehow held hope for the survivors. He saw the map of the invasive Grannvale empire and sought the wrinkles and folds with the urge to smooth them out, to reach out hands to those who had lost theirs.

It was pure idealism. The children -the _children_ \- of the Issach Rebellion had a bone to pick with the world, and it was led by none other than the son of the man whom had led their parents to their graves because of _his_ faith in the good of others.

Ares didn’t expect much from Seliph. He wasn’t much to look at, one of the shorter members of the army with the only resemblance to his warrior father that of his dark blue hair. Big eyes better suited for a girl, and drowning in hand-me-downs from his father and tactician, he was a paltry peace monger. He didn’t look strong enough to hold a sword, let alone all their lives in his hands.

But there was more to Seliph than what was found on surface. Kind, always ready to sooth tensions, but never compromised those who put their trust in him. He asked questions when things lacked sense, and never wavered when the answers he heard were cruel. As quick as he was to offer a hand, he was just as swift to draw a sword.

Seliph wanted peace, and was willing to fight for it.

Ares could appreciate that kind of single-minded drive- something that had guided himself through the dark years of his childhood- but more than anything, he valued the strength it took to remain that way. With the demon sword in his hand, Ares though he understood strength- after all, it was with the help of that sword that they were winning this war- but he hadn’t understood Seliph’s.

It was impressive, how that one body could seemingly hold two different people. One, the kind boy just trying to right the wrongs of the past and make the world a better place; the other, the war monger who marched across deserts and stormed castles in the name of peace and justice.

That’s how he came to fall for him, he’s sure. The war monger won Ares’ respect, and the boy slowly captured his heart.

Watching him for directions was second nature on the battlefield, and studying his movements off it began to bleed together, and eventually he was doing nothing but noticing things about Seliph.

Seliph simultaneously smiled too much, and not enough. Not enough around Ares, and too much in his presence like every soft quirk of the lips was meant to be a secret, or to drive him insane. He falls of his horse too easily (he’s still learning to ride), and he always has something nice to say, and his tent is a mess, and the silver scar of the arrow he took through the shoulder is always visible just below the collar of his tunic, and Ares notices everything now.

It’s a hot evening by the campfire, and Seliph has shed his numerous outer layers to just his grass-stained inner shirt and pants, the fire light making that scar seem soft and red instead of silver and mortal, when Ares notices how much he notices these things about him.

Life seemed suspended in that instant, Seliph’s contemplative gaze stoking the fire one moment, shifting over to Ares in the next, and it’s as if only they exist.

There’s always strength in Seliph, in everything he does and everything he is, but now he just looks like a boy as he polishes his father’s sword by the gold glow of the fire. Any moment the illusion might be broken, this boy’s long missing father simply strolling by and taking his sword back from the fingers of a child unready to handle such sharp truths, robbing him of his evident strength; or maybe Ares just closes the gap between them with his body and shatters it by his own hand, taking Seliph’s strength and everything else for himself.

What would he do, Seliph having a hand reach out for him instead of the other way around?

Ares would’ve done it. But then Seliph smiles and breaks the moment open, and Ares can feel the fire, and his feelings, and everyone’s presence around them again.

Ares can’t find it within himself to return that smile, and its cruel, the small frown that replaces Seliph’s smile when he doesn’t. It’s cruel, but Ares knows he’s not ready for it yet. He’s not ready to care this deeply for the son of the man who ruined his life- and maybe it’s not fair to keep thinking of Seliph that way, but maybe, more than anything, Ares just wasn’t ready to forgive himself for how he felt towards him for so long, all the hatred revenge had stained him with.

He’s come to terms with it, but letting go of the father he remembered for the one that really existed was going to take more time than he had to give just yet.

So Ares bites his tongue, bites back a smile, and will let Seliph turn away for the time being. The bridges they’ve mended together will go unwalked, but not abandoned, and Ares will just continue to watch Seliph from the opposite side for a while longer.

But he will cross that gap one day, and though the world is a cruel place, he still believes in kindness, and hopes Seliph will still be standing on the other side once he does.

* * *

 

The world was a dark place.

The shadows cast by history are long and grim. A single choice, a single moment, a single person, and they could drown the future generations in darkness.

All Seliph wanted to do was to lift some of those heavy shadows, to bring back the light to a starving world, where perhaps something like hope might be able to grow again. To redeem them all from the shadows cast by their cold legacies.

Ares was a chance to redeem Sigurd from history- at least at first. Their initial meeting, he pointed a sword at Seliph’s chest and spoke the words of a hatred so deeply carved into him, Seliph saw the jagged fragments of a heart that might’ve been his if Oiphay and Shanan hadn’t been at his side. So, he offered a hand to Ares’ sword, and promised him the resolution their fathers never had to chance to reach.

It was like looking at a painting, the resemblance between Ares and Eldigan. Made of velvet and gold, both of them, but where Eldigan was warm, Ares was dark. The light clung to Eldigan like a halo, but gleamed off Ares like a knife. They were not quite different, but not quite the same.

But it was close enough, as far as Seliph’s guilt was concerned. Reconnecting with Leif had strengthened the ties between Sigurd and Quan that might’ve been lost to the desert, the serendipitous meeting of the final piece of their fathers’ legacies at Darna slotting into place with Ares, and it felt as if some weight had been lifted from Seliph’s shoulders. Like he had done something his father would have been proud of, the guilt of ‘possibility’ no longer hanging over his head.

It was almost selfish of him, this need of the sons of his father’s closest friends- two men whose deaths were the cause of Sigurd’s folly. But he came to care as deeply for them as his father had his companions, and he felt this went beyond what blood intended: instead, an act of fate.

Leif was easy to care for (he was his cousin after all), upbeat and forthright, a hero to them, and all of Thracia. He gave Seliph the strength and companionship of one who knew the same kind of suffering in the same way he did, and it forged an unparalleled friendship between them.

Ares was more difficult, though easy in some ways. Difficult was the way he spoke with distain, clear as water and dark as blood; difficult was his bitter attitude and hot temper.

Easy was the way he listened to what others had to say, even if it differed from what he thought or agreed with; easy was the way he was noble and brave; easy was the way he began to look at Seliph the more they fought alongside and learned more about each other.

It’s a rain drenched day, caught fighting in the deluge, the both of them pressed into a forest for cover as the Lopt sect faithful circled ever closer, when Seliph takes an arrow through the shoulder and the world falls still.

Nothing moves but the arrow as it plunges through his body and out his chest, and Ares’ hands as they’re scooping Seliph up and into his arms. The world is a clash of darkness and sound, shapes moving sporadically behind his flickering eyelids and he’s jolted into movement as Ares throws them both onto his horse and rides.

The shapes still into a golden form, and the sounds fracture and reassemble into a raised voice, and Ares is yelling at Seliph to _hold on_. Rain and fabric and trees blow by, but all that’s left in Seliph’s vision is him.

_Hold on._

It hits him then. People spoke of love as if it were an arrow, swift and true and fated. They spoke of it as if it were a pleasant thing, but as with the arrow Seliph had taken that day, he felt it for what it really was:

Excruciating.

Love lodged itself in Seliph’s chest like the shaft of an arrow, felt in every breath and in every action he took. It knocked against his ribs, and he always felt the seeping warmth of a mortal wound whenever Ares was around, but he held on.

What was worse was the way it seemed the shooter had misguided aim, that the arrow had pierced Seliph and missed Ares.

When Seliph awoke next, he was alone in his tent, bandaged and bruised, but alive. And he remembered the way Ares had carried him through the rain, the way the water ran down his face and made the world so gray the green in his eyes stood out like magic. And then he was hauling himself up and through camp, aching and desperate to find him.

And when he did, Ares simply met his eyes, nodded, and walked away.

From then, nothing changed between them. Friendly, functioning, nothing different- except for the way everything hurt when Seliph thought about it. The rode in battle together, ate dinner surrounded by their friends and comrades, and as the wound the arrow left turned from red to silver, the skin knitting together and the pain receding, nothing changed between them and the way Seliph felt about Ares changed far too much.

It was hard to look at him some days, when he sat too close at meals, or they shared his horse for faster travel, or he smirked at something and the sharp frown that darkened his face lifted for something lighter, if only for just a moment.

What would history have to say, if a decision hadn’t been made and their fathers had stayed on the same side? Would they have been able to grow close like Seliph and Leif had? Would they have been able to swear to avenge their fathers together rather than swear vengeance for their fathers _on_ each other? Might Ares have been able to see Seliph for himself, instead of Sigurd’s mistakes?

Perhaps, they’ll just be condemned to marching forward through the shadows cast by the war their fathers failed to end, walking together to the new future they craved, never again to allow history to repeat itself.

And that, that will be fine, because they’ll be marching together, together with all their comrades and friends and loved ones. They’ll reach that future together, and maybe with some time, the actions of the past with cease to sting and the emotions of the present shall finally feel true.

Seliph will hold out hope for that moment, because as dark as it was now, the light was within reach, and it was his duty to usher it forth.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: YO MY AWESOME FRIEND PILLY MADE SOME ART OF THIS FIC PLEASE GO SEE IT AAAAA
> 
> http://pillyart.tumblr.com/post/172631905902/so-i-read-this-fic-by-mistressakirahime-which-was


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